


Stage One: initialize moments of time

by Annabel_Lioncourt



Series: Flaws In Design [1]
Category: Alien Series, Alien: Isolation (Video Game), Aliens: Defiance (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Its a Thing, Other, Suspension Of Disbelief, becuase I needed to get some kind of communication in there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-03-04 03:33:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13355628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annabel_Lioncourt/pseuds/Annabel_Lioncourt
Summary: An extended prelude to Sevastapol.





	1. Ripley-McClaren, Amanda Tei

**Author's Note:**

  * For [This is for the entirety of this tiny little ship](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=This+is+for+the+entirety+of+this+tiny+little+ship).



 

None of this can be real,  _she was thinking. This happy looking home with mismatched coffee mugs on the shelf; arguing over what color sheets to get; dancing on the living room floor; panicked searching for a ring that had slipped off her finger, laughing when they found out that it had been left on the little ring-holder on the bedside table. This new reality didn't seem final, it felt like the fight would start again, that someday she'd be back on the long-destroyed space station, everyone she ever cared about dead. Learning to live didn't seem to have a point, and even now it doesn't._

_Even right now, friends finally trickling out one by one or two by two as the hours passed by, finally left alone._

_“Well, Mrs. McClaren, what do you want to do now?” he was smiling brightly over the rim of his champagne glass. This handsome gentleman still in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, standing in her kitchen; he looks like a character from another person's story._

_“You almost sound tipsy,” she says, pouring the last of the bottle into her own glass. A grocery store cake only half-eaten sat on the counter under its plastic cover. There were only eight guests, neither of them have living parents._

_“Ah, that’s on me then; terrible day to try and see how far my limit goes,” he looks up at her, a wonderfully imperfect smile._

_“Mr. Ripley, your smirk **really** concerns me.”_

_He’s sentimental, and doesn’t like to talk about what she's seen, what’s been done. Sometimes she needs an ear, but short of the occasional nightmare, it never comes up. Normal life. This perfectly sane man holding out his hand to her. Normal home. Normal marriage. It's not what she thought she'd have; but there could be so many worse things than this strange dream she was living out until waking up to the truth._

_“My offer still stands to take you to any beach, any resort, mountain cabin, lakeside, or city in the colonized galaxy.”_

_“And I was just about to say that I wouldn't want to be anywhere but here.”_

 

_If this was real, if this was something that might last, then adjusting to this, to the humdrum of civilian life and security was going to be a slow and difficult climb._

 


	2. Torrens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A curious and bored Ripley tries to drag herself out of solitude with who or whatever is willing to talk.

Nina Taylor was nicer than initial introductions would have led Ripley to believe. She was kind enough to let her borrow one of her handheld videogames when Ripley couldn’t sleep so that instead she could rest in her bunk under the standard-issue quilt, volume of Nina's console turned down, playing vintage arcade games on the tiny screen. It was the closest thing to friendship Amanda had dealt with since one of her coworkers at the old shipyard at Tranquility handed her an old deck of cards. At the time the dockworker told her that he thought she looked bored. It was easier than telling her she looked lonely. Then he left.

No matter, Amanda Ripley had taught herself how to play solitaire when she was eleven.

The pilot—Conner, she thought—was a quiet man that preferred his private cabin with its nearly constant stream of old rock music that Amanda desperately wished she could have a conversation with him about. But his retreat there always seemed less of loneliness and more of habit.

She worried deeply that she would be like that one day. Worried that she was _already_ like that when she gave up so easily in her search for company.

Verlaine was ruled out early on. She had a no-nonsense air about her that reminded her too much of her mother. Her mother that didn’t walk out, her mother that died. She didn’t come home because she couldn’t, not because she didn’t want to. Not because coming home to aging parents and a whiny ten year old was too much. Getting along with older women never came naturally for her. Every one of them was a potential chance to have a female figure of guidance in her life again, and every one of them was a chance to have that same figure walk out off her life ...again.

She was about to quit her search for talk, the same way she usually did during off-planet or off-station jobs and retreat to her bunk or to her work.

Still… That worry that she was turning into a hermit, someone who had no interest in others; a loner that people avoided. Nine out of ten times that was what she ended up as, before moving onto the next job, next place. If she was going to break that pattern (it was exhausting, to be alone no matter how good she was at it) she needed to at least try just _once_.

Was it pathetic then, that by default she was approaching the company synthetic for conversation? For human contact? Or at least, as close to human contact that someone as backwards as herself could get?

 _Probably_ , she thought.

 

Nearly the first thing Amanda had observed about Samuels was that he'd be considered obsessive-compulsive if  he was a human. Daily tasks for him included a full check of all the ship’s systems, the medical bay, and the cryosleep pods. It ate up over an hour of each morning, and Amanda almost felt bad for him, even though he didn’t seem bored—if he could even _get_ bored. Synthetics were pretty dry characters, not much for personality. And yet….she’s heard the same thing that everyone else in the tech field has heard: that sometimes they can get a bit…funny. Too human. Too _real_. Of course, the most likely reason is just uncanny valley syndrome at talking to a machine that outwardly is 99.999% indistinguishable from a human. Weyland-Yutani models passed the Turing Test 87.5% of the time when talking to the general public. The number would likely be higher if all androids were given unique faces instead of matching the rest of their line.

This particular synth seemed nice enough. The fact that he worked for the company that has been (ironically) the most constant figure in her life wasn’t entirely his fault. He was probably _built_ to do his job. Public relations? Missions specialist? Some kind of executive, that was all he even bothered to allude to. It would make for half-decent conversation at any rate, and she couldn’t help it. Not counting the two days out of cryo with the crew, it had been four weeks since she’s held more than a passing conversation with a stranger or coworker. And that conversation was with him over requirements and contracts for this trip. He seemed a bit buggy; hyper attentive at the time, looking equal parts jubilant and panicked but the expression made him stick out from the others on his floor that wore the same face, so she didn't have to deal with the human creeps that worked that godforsaken wasp nest of an office.

“Samuels?” she poked her head into the door he vanished into, which, to her surprise turned out to be a cabin. It was entirely possible that he was only being kept apart for the peace of mind of the crew; even those who worked closely with synths weren’t known for wanting them around constantly. Or maybe when Weyland-Yutani said  _all our execs get priority lodging_ they didn't think to spell out  _except androids we don't care about them_.

But none of this stayed in her head for very long, as she noticed that she was wrong in one sense: he had been retreating to his room, the same as Conner, and now she was intruding.

“I thought you might have been following me. Your bunks are on the other end of the corridor. Is there something I could help you with?” his voice was a casual, far from the monotone of the MUTHER system.

“Honestly? I’m bored.” After an embarrassing time getting lost trying to find her locker and the shower after getting out of cryo, after him seeing her in her underclothes _multiple times_ for brief but measurable exchanges, any formality would have felt forced.

“Miss Taylor has brought hologames, as well as hand-held devices with her, I’m sure she would—“

“Are the two of you friends?” Amanda didn’t make eye contact, instead trying to spy on what a synthetic’s private quarters could even _have_.

“She is an intelligent and promising new employee of the company.” He looked almost confused.

“I just wondered. She’s kind of…distant with me. But that could just be me, I don’t give off the—“

“—Best first impression?”

She couldn’t tell if he was being the same type of brutal-honest any computation would be, or if the _damn robot was trying to sass her_.

“Thanks?”

“Any time, though I do have scheduled duties from four-hundred hours to fourteen hundred hours, and again at—“

“What is your job here?”

“—Hard to do when you’re interrupting me.”

“You did it to me.” His room was dark, so it was hard to be sure of it, but she could have _sworn_ his mouth twitched a little in a smile at her words.

“Come in, if you would like, and sit. I have a chair here.” The lights turned on overhead, and Amanda saw the room in better detail: a modest bunk with a single awful looking grey quilt on it, no pillow, a plain desk with a stack of paper work next to a datapad, a chair, and a compartment that she assumed would for a human occupant be for personal belongings. A narrow closet was open to show two changes of the same uniform he was wearing, and his jacket from earlier. Looking back to him she saw that he was in a button up shirt with a Weyland-Yutani logo embroidered above the pocket. ‘Synthetics Division’ was immediately under it. No wonder he kept the jacket on, she realized, if his clothing screamed out what he was.

“Your shirt....why does it say...?”

“My sincerest apologies if you are only now realizing that I am not flesh and blood,” his expression was less humorous and more genuine, even guilty. Amanda, feeling guilty too, crossed the three steps worth of space and sat down at his desk. Samuels remained standing.

“I knew in about four seconds. I’ve seen your model at the company offices before but…Why make you guys so real looking if they’re making you waltz around wearing shirts that say ‘hi I’m a robot’?”

“First of all, though I shouldn’t correct you on such a technicality, but a ‘robot’ could be any programmable device with mobility. Most children’s toys are robots. Synthetics are…a specialization of the android category. I would think that an engineer would know that.”

“I did, I was being a smartass,” she caught something else in his words too; there was a kind of…displeasure. “But if you don’t like being called a robot, I won’t say it.”

“I don’t have a preference. That’s…my point of use. And to answer you, we're made to appear real for situations in which it would be important for our natures to go unnoticed. In which case, I would not be wearing the office uniform. With the exception of the eyes, and a few wire ports that are well hidden in the skin, there’s very little of this that isn’t human in outward appearance.”

“That’s…actually really cool. Creepy that the company would have reasons to sneak you around but I’m not surprised. Sketchy bastards…”

“True, they are not the most scrupulous in the industry, but humans have been reported to work better things that look like them rather than more primitive models. Have you seen the Seegson advertisements? Imagine having to spend time in close quarters working with one of those.”

Amanda kept listening for something human in his voice. Unaccustomed to humans with his accent, she couldn’t tell if any of this was cultural—she didn’t know if the British were more subtle in their intonation, or if the slight vocal shifts were programmed ticks.

“Why are you still standing?”

“I don’t get tired or feel pain, so there’s no reason for me to sit.”

“Could you though? Talking up to you is awkward. Most people talk at eye-level, not eye to hip level.”

He listened, gingerly sat on the edge of the immaculate bunk, turned to face her. “Ripley, why exactly are you here?”

“I told you, I’m bored. You’re interesting.”

“Everything you could ever want to know about me is in my manual, which is part of the ship’s database of technology. “

“Tech? I thought I saw you on the ship’s crew log?”

“Both, again it’s a technicality: a ship of this class requires a crew of at least five, preferably six or seven, ergo, listing me as crew instead of included technologies allows them to avoid having to sign another paycheck to a contracted employee.”

“Wait, wait… _Another_ paycheck… They don’t _pay_ you?!”

“They provide me with expensive upkeep, energy outlets, a place to stay, clothing, and work. Purpose. More than that, I have no need for food, housing, hobbies, leisurely pursuits. Anything I need I can purchase on the company account.” He sounded  _grateful_ of his given lot, and it made Ripley’s blood scream at a cellular level. Anyone doing his workload deserved the same contract that she had at the very least.

“That’s not the same as giving you—Anything smart as you needs some kind of…basic enrichment. Don’t you get bored?” even the old models of synthetics at her college laboratory were given menial data to crunch when they were online but not in use.

“I wouldn’t phrase it like that. I can get into a rut of programming where my awareness is limited; it’s more frightening than tedious. I try to keep secondary programs running. Please—don’t worry though, I’ve been suspicious about possible bugs for some time, and I get inspected regularly. I’m perfectly functional.”

“Jesus, I wasn’t afraid; I feel bad for you. You have nothing other than work, and you don’t talk to anyone here.”

“I speak with Taylor when situation necessitates, or you now, but otherwise, no. I don’t.”

“And you said you aren’t friends with her?”

“No.”

“Do you have friends at the office?” not, she thought, that the creeps at Weyland-Yutani were worth being friends with. But desperation, or innocence that he radiated could have driven him close to someone. After all, that’s why she was in his cabin at all.

“There are those who aren’t used to working alongside synthetics, and refer to me as a human, but they’re not exactly companions.”

Amanda leaned back in his chair, studied his unreadable face. Good God he even had faint stubble, vague lines at the corners of his eyes. If she hadn’t seen them before, she’d have never known him from the real thing.

“And you don’t like being referred to as human?”

“I don't  _mind_ either way. I cannot like or dislike things. However, I am not a human and it would be healthier for those that work with synthetics to recognize the contrast, and communicate in a way that reflects it.” His voice didn’t sound like his own; it was like something he was reading from a script.

“Sorry, but I can’t do that.”

“Pardon?”

“I’m not going to sit across from someone who _clearly_ had their own opinions and thoughts, and not treat them like they’re a human.”

“You’re wrong. It’s much better if it’s the way that it should be.” Fake voice again. Maybe trying to convince himself as much as he was her. Either way, Amanda didn’t take it.

“Okay. So no friends. Can’t say that’s weird, I don’t have any friends myself. Girlfriends? Boyfriends?”

“Ah, neither. I’m not capable of emotions at all, let alone those strong enough to carry out a relationship.”

“No crush? No pretty blonde ‘droid back home?”

“Hardly,” his smile was laughing, though he didn’t even chuckle, and Amanda was curious if he had the ability to laugh at all.

“You’re boring,” she leaned farther back in his chair, rocking it on its rear legs, her own cross in front of her, one boot on the ground to steady her from falling.

“I'm sorry to prove so disappointing that you're opinion of me changed so dramatically. That is what you came here for? To be entertained?”

“If I wanted entertainment, I’d watch an old movie on a datapad in my bunk.”

“Then why come here—“

“I told you, conversation. Maybe it’s the synthetic thing, but you’re easier to talk to than the others.”

“Thank you…I think.”

“It’s a compliment…I think.” She looked up at him, to see if he’s emoting anything at all, but he’s still wearing a friendly smile that looked factory fresh. “You invited me out here. I don’t think I thanked you for that.”

“Oh. There’s no need to, anyone who came across your file would—“

“They haven’t though. You read it, I’ve been begging and fighting with the company for over a decade for information, and no one budged. Then you just…walk into my work and offer up answers to questions I didn’t ask you. Why?”

The pause he took looked human, as if he was stopping to think. Despite having been waiting for this moment, this visual proof that he was as deep as she suspected, Amanda didn’t feel comfortable with it.

“I had the ability to do it," he stated, "You sounded—anyone would have done it had they the power to. There wasn’t any reason for me _not_ to invite you along. Once I asked my superiors permission they were thrilled, they said that they've been trying to get you...er, off of their...you understand--for quite some time now.”

“You’re nice. That’s going to make it harder.”

“What?”

“Remembering that you work for the devil,” there was a ghost of a smile on his face, so vague that Ripley wondered yet again if she was just imagining it. “But since you didn’t exactly _choose_ your place of employment, I might be able to forgive that.”

“You’d forgive the fact that I work for the very same people who’ve destroyed your life?”

“No need to be dramatic about it.”

“I would never.”

Amanda _still_ wasn’t entirely sure if it was sarcasm or not. Droll certainly, but maybe not entirely sarcastic; there’s honesty in the words too.

“I should do something constructive…I’m supposed to drain the air filters at some point.” she said, sliding off his chair. He immediately stood up to open the door for her. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. And thank you.”

“If you’re bored, you could come with me. I wouldn’t mind company.”

There was no immediate reply, but a look of _genuine confusion_ , of humanness that didn’t bother Amanda half as much as it did a moment ago.

“If you don’t mind, maybe I will.” He paused for half a moment, maybe waiting for another remark from Ripley; then smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't forget about this one! It's my first attempt at long-fic so I can't promise regular updates...between how hard longfic is for me to write, and IRL nonsense I'm not going to commit to a scheduled update, but I'll post all updates on my tumblr, one-of-us-must-be-crazy.
> 
> In the meantime there are a few more ficlets in the works that might come before the next chapter of this.
> 
> Thank you all for still being here; its nice to know I'm not the only person on the entire internet that's still hung up on these two.


	3. Work and Leisure

Short-circuiting was the least of his concerns as he followed Ripley’s long-strided walk down the south corridor to the engine room. She invited herself to his room for human companionship—falling under the category of things he couldn’t give; then asked if he’d join her at work. True these didn't mean much to her, but this was the closest thing to a friend he had, ignoring the goldfish in his office at Luna.

Ripley was turning out to be a fascinating woman, really, so much more even than her file let on: where the file emphasized in less-than-complimentary terms her fire, her boldness, her tenacity and strength; Ripley in person had a greater dimension to her. Quiet, warmhearted, and sharply intelligent, she was so delightfully alive that he didn’t know what to make of her, or the position that he had put them both in with the Company. His _employers_ she referred to them as. Not his creators or owners or operators. Despite his protests, she refused to treat him as an android...yet when he advised against calling him a robot, she had listened.

“Ripley?”

“Hmm?”

“If you really are bored, there’s a media library on the ship’s wireless network. There’s books...”

“Books don’t talk back to you. I mean. They _do,_ but not like a person. I get the idea of communicating with art or whatever bullshit, but Bradbury never answered my calls, so here I am. What about you?”

“I’m kept busy for the most part.”

“If you’re bored?”

“I don’t—“

Ripley rolled her eyes. “I know. And I’m still asking.”

“I enjoy reading.”

“Is there anyone English that doesn’t? or do they just breed professor-types over there?”

“I’m not really English. I'm sure there are some who don’t like reading. I enjoy it because it’s a glimpse into the distinctly human minds of the writers.”

Amanda raised the latch on the engine room door and walked in, ducking under an overhanging air vent.

“Watch your head… and I didn’t ask you why you like reading.”

“I know. And I’m still answering.”

“Oooh  _you_ are going to be more fun than I thought,” she replied through a tight smile.

“Your tone suggests that you assumed I was giving you sarcasm, humor. I can’t do that.”

“You’re full of shit—“

“Seeing as I lack a biological aspect, that's not how my filtration system works—“

“Okay, I know how your filtration system works, and in college I had to _replace_ one on a fourth gen. droid so please never remind me of that ever again. Ever. Again. Anyway it was just a phrase.”

“Good lord, I apolo—“

“You’re not the one who owed a serious favor to her lab partner and brought it down on herself.”

She found her goal, a small panel marked with a water drop symbol, and opened it to find whoever did this last removed her supplies “Fuck. There should be a white bucket hanging around here somewhere.” She touched the lever on the side of the interior pipe, and it nearly burst itself to the ‘open’ position; she grabbed it with both hands and held it in place. “And quickly? If it floods onto an engine panel we’ll have to shut off secondaries and—“

“Here,” she hadn’t even heard him walk away when he handed it to her.

“Thanks. This is good enough for now, but I need the drainage tube.”

“It isn’t an efficient system,”

“This ship class was ancient when my mom started with the Company.”

“An absolute relic,” he said walking back to the tool closet to retrieve it. It didn't make very much sense to him: why would a company with the funding behind it that Weyland-Yutani did hire an old ship rather than send their own, newer one? Yes this one would be cheaper on the market but after paying the owner's fees and getting contracts for them, using one of theirs would have been cheaper.

“It’s easy, just connect the tube to the pipe drain, and into the water drain under that grate,” she pointed over. “Or it would be if I didn’t take so long to come down here and do it.”

“Strangely enough” he handed her one end of it and walked the other to the grate himself, “boredom can cause procrastination.”

“Yeah. Does it ever get depressing for you?”

“I can't--”

"--Fuck, I know, I know you don't have 'feelings'. What about your books? What happens when you read a sad one?”

“I… register a sense of sympathy for the characters, though I think it’s less of a sense and more of a construct designed to insure I offer the best possible service to those in need of help or attention.”

“Or you could just have a sense of _empathy_.”

“If I did there would be far less androids out on the market.”

“Why less?” she could feel the ease of the water pressure, that it was almost done draining but she was curious. None of the droids she’d ever worked with in college had half the personality, and few she’d come into contact with were this _fluent_ in humanity.

“Because it would… the idea of us is that over time we would save a business or household money. No one to pay, no one to worry about, and we always do our jobs correctly, completely, and on time. If we were sentient, there were be legal issues. An AI in Tokyo was deemed to have a personality, about ten years ago if you remember. It was nearly granted personhood before being shut down. The official report was that it had a system failure and couldn't be rebooted. They had its housing software destroyed.”

“And if anyone had a conversation with you they’d push you into the incinerator?”

“No, because I am not a person nor in danger of becoming one.” he said it with such finality, Ripley wondered if he actually believed that the words he was saying instead of just telling her what he was supposed to.

“Right. It’s fucked up though.”

“Pardon?”

“I mean it, they should let you guys, “ she gestured vaguely in his direction, unsure what she even meant, unsure that this was a good idea, that she was right _that any of this made sense anyway_ , and she _hated_ not being certain about her surroundings, “Develop. Either stay how you are or slowly become more human.”

“That’s a little too—“

“Asimov?”

“ _Blade Runner_.”

“God you’re grim. There can’t be a nice middle ground?”

“Perhaps eventually. But there are moral issues with keeping and not paying a synthetic, with forcing them what to do whatever they—You’ve read Asimov? What about you then. Do you enjoy reading?”

“I was interviewing you, but…” Amanda listened to the last of the water to be sure it had drained before detaching the tube. “Yeah, I guess. I liked Asimov enough. Kind of…cutesy. I think I name dropped Bradbury—“

“You did, but from our communications thus far I was led to think it was a quip.”

“It _was_ don’t worry; but I’ve read him. Ah…I don’t know, my dad liked early science fiction so I read a lot of him growing up. When I have the time and need a distraction I’ll read—if projects are stressing me out or I can’t afford a side project.”

“Mechanical projects?”

“Yeah. You’ve read my file, I’ve taken advanced robotics 101 through 401 for lab requirements. I was always shit at chemistry. Biology would mean I’d be cutting open dead bodies and—I’m not squeamish but—if I didn’t have to see their faces maybe, but I couldn’t have done it.”

“You ended up turning down a scholarship to continue robotics studies.”

“I wasn’t interested—no offense—I like mechanical work better; larger machines, ships, hovercrafts, cars even. Once, I even rebuilt a fuel-injection block engine for a 1930—“

“Rolls-Royce Phantom. You won the undergraduate award for it.”

Amanda looked at him; she was both embarrassed and annoyed at him and at herself—him for knowing it already, and herself for over-sharing.

“Right. You memorized my file.”

“It was a beautiful machine, you should be proud of it.”

“Thanks,” she stood up from her position by the grate and handed him the coiled up tube. “Put that back, I’ll close up the—“

“I didn’t purposefully set out to memorize your records,” he blurted out.

Ripley paused her movement and her head tilted slightly _she’s listening_.

“And I wasn’t ordered to either. I can’t help it, my memory is made up of perfect audio-visual recollection.”

“Like a film?” she asked.

“More or less,” it was basically a film, but a film of his own eyes; a first-person hologame might have made more sense to her, but he wasn’t sure if her interest in them was on par with his colleague’s.

“What…what does that even _feel_ like?”

“Like nothing at all.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for sticking around, and I know this is a short one, but I wanted to put SOMETHING out there to prove I'm still working on this thing.


	4. Criteria

“You can't be serious, Ripley. That was one of the _worst_ movie I’ve ever seen.” Despite how distraught Samuels' vocal simulator sounded, he was still smiling at her. They'd been debating about various films for a while now, most of her break, and he was encouraged by the fact that she was still interested in it, rather than urging the conversation towards a close.

“Yes but you’re a man; every woman I’ve known who’s seen it thinks it’s high art,” she countered.

“Rudimentary special effects even for it’s time period, far from the best acting, a color palette and lighting design that clash  _horrifically._ It was too illogical to be high fantasy, and not illogical enough to be a  _Wonderland_ kind of story. All of that, plus the vague look that someone spray painted the entire set with glitter, none of it seems to be done with the intent of purposefully achieving the ‘camp’ style.”

“The best campy movies are the ones that do it effortlessly. You can’t be purposefully camp,” Ripley said without looking up from from her work.

“I see that, and I raise you the entire filmography of Ed Wood," he said.

“Ed Wood wasn’t making shit films on purpose; I'm pretty sure he was actually that bad.”

“Wait, wait,” he started. Samuels tried to stop the pull of a too-wide smile and failed. The result ended up being a crooked grin that Amanda tried to ignore.

“What?”

“How does someone like you have so much time on their hands to know so much about films, about two hundred years of them?” He was watching her work intently, still with a smile, amused.

Ripley finished with the final screw on the back of the motion tracker; a useless appliance that she was entirely convinced Verlaine just gave her as busy work. Still, she’d never repaired one before the process was as interesting and infuriating as the company she had at the galley table while she worked.

“Well. I don’t have a lot of friends, and I don't like silence. Having a set on, it's almost like another person in the room," she shrugged.

“You’re too kind and clever to not have many friends,”

“I’m also kind of an asshole, and kind of actively try to _not_ keep friends.” It made life easier. Too quiet, but easier at least until the last year or so, when it began to grow exhausting.

“Would you prefer then, if I don’t stay around?” He was already half way out of his seat. It was a test, and he felt a twist of guilt for doing it to her, hoping that she'd--

“No! Stay...please.” she collected herself quickly; desperation for company was one thing, desperation to keep the company of a synthetic? _Pathetic_.

“I'm sorry. Did you have _any_ friends?”

“Last one was Zula Hendricks, she was a marine on medical leave but she was sent back out after a few months.”

“And you haven’t had contact?” He already knew that she didn't have contact. He knew that Hendricks was AWOL and now off the grid. He found that information in Hendricks' file when her name showed up on Amanda Ripley's as part of her list of most-contacted persons. Still, he asked Ripley anyway, he already knew more about Ripley than she was alright with, and he didn't want to let on to how much about her the Company knew.

“No. I kept sending her messages but stopped getting them after a few weeks. Then you showed up, and I tried messaging her again so if something happened she didn’t think I gave up on her, but—Well, it doesn’t matter. It happens a lot; people come and go on Luna: back to on-planet work, or to an actual colony. Right now everyone wants to go to work on Phobos—“

“You don’t want to—“

“I know I don’t—“

“No, I mean that I’ve been sent there before. It’s…Unpleasant. There was a lot of construction, and the unreliable wireless networks meant that synthetics and other technologies didn’t function well. My entire line was then sent here.”

“So you’ve seen Mars?” she asked. There was a lot to him for someone who was constantly claiming that he was nothing and did nothing.

“You haven’t?”

“No, I didn’t make the colonizing engineers' cut, and even if I did…It was a four year contract, I didn’t want to get stuck there. The only places there that were finished on the planet itself were the resorts on the new beaches; I sure as fuck couldn’t afford them.”

“I never was on the mainland; only Phobos, but from what I could see the planet was lovely. The Earthrise there is similar to seeing Venus at dawn on Earth. On Phobos the view is clearer, and you can see the moon too.”

Ripley listened, trying to keep a check on how much wonder she allowed to show on her face; after the flight recorder was recovered, after her mother’s case was closed, she would be free to see that for herself. Perhaps Mars would be nice. Work the rest of her contract out there and then use the money to repurchase her grandparents’ house, open it up as a vacation bed and breakfast. She’d have to hire a cook; she had never even succeeded in pancakes let alone any breakfast or bunch more complex than scrambled eggs and toast. Maybe an out-building that she could use as a workshop. Ripley was then pushed out of the brief reverie by the sound of Samuels’ chair moving back; she looked back to him, panicked again at the idea that he was bored with the silence.

“So what movies do you like?” she asked as he stood up and moved to walk away.

“Pardon?” he was only going over to the larder, and briefly vanished into the large-closet-sized room, returning with a box of tea. Amanda breathed out a slight sigh of relief; he did plan to stay a little longer.

“You mentioned films you don’t like, but you didn’t name any that you did.” She watched carefully; he was methodically making a cup of tea; turning on the auto-boiler, measuring tea into the plastic brewer with an almost automatic set of movements. From where Amanda was sitting, it didn't even look like he was watching what he was doing.

“Mostly I’ve only seen older film, early ones. The Weyland-Yutani media branch purchased the rights to the Criterion collection—which doesn’t necessarily mean _good_ films but landmark ones, or ones that had a noteworthy influence in popular culture.”

“So like… _Casablanca_? That kind of thing?” she asked, only half aware of what the Criterion was. Samuels carried the cup of tea over to her and sat it down next to her small tool case and the finished motion tracker. “Oh, thanks... You don’t want it?”

“I don’t need it. Half a glass of water now and then is sufficient if I’m low on fluids and don’t have access to—No, I don’t require any sustenance.”

Amanda took a careful sip, trying to avoid burning herself. Samuels was obviously unwilling to meditate long on his functioning, though reminding her of his nature every few moments.

“Sure, but I didn’t ask if you needed it. I asked you if you _wanted_ it.”

“I’m…not certain if I can or cannot ‘want.’ But I do know that I did _not_ want the tea to myself, so please. Enjoy it, you looked drawn.”

“Thank you,”

“To answer the question of films…Yes, things of a similar era to Casablanca, but forgive me, as I know it’s a perennial favorite, but I found it overrated.”

“Really now?”

“And you,” he started to ask, hesitant and afraid to insult, “What did you think of that one?”

“I fucking hated it.”

Samuels turned away immediately to hide it, but Ripley saw it anyway, and recognized it: a look of bashful joy, a too-wide smile, like a schoolboy turning away from an awkward first kiss. _He’s got to be a program; he’s too sweet to be a human_.

“I should go and check on navigations.”

“Yeah, I’ll put the tracker away, find Verlaine and ask her what she wanted with it.”

“Ripley?”

“Yes?”

“If you’re bored still after you’re through with duties, the navigation cabin has…larger computer screens than handheld datapads. You could watch a film or attach one of Taylor’s games to it.”

“I don’t have that much free time, but thanks.” She added the effort of a smile; he seemed emotionally aware enough that it was probably unneeded, but in case he wasn't she waned to be sure that he knew she was genuinely grateful that someone thought of that.

That someone thought of the tea for her, noticed she could use it.

That someone was going out of their way to keep her company.

If she didn’t know better, she’d almost wonder if—

 _No_.

It wasn’t even that she thought he wasn’t advanced enough, but…Amanda long had a habit of misinterpreting kindness for affection. Her new friend was attentive, as programmed, and nice because he was a nice person. Even if he behaved like he was trying very hard but very badly at hiding feelings that he denied the ability to even have.

“Samuels, wait.”

“Yes?”

“If you want to watch a movie with me, I could find time.”

“That—I didn’t mean—I _would_ want to but—“

Ripley almost laughed.

“You said it. ‘Want,’ so you _can_ want things.” With the look that he gave her she thought he was going to shut down. “It’s fine. If you want company, I can afford to miss a couple hours sleep to join you on your shift.”

“I’ll…pass on that, I have a lot of work to do, and I’m sure you could use all the sleep you can get.”

“Okay,” she pushed her chair in and walked out with her things. She said something wrong, but wasn’t entirely sure what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cookies to whoever guesses the movie that Christopher thought was garbage but Amanda enjoyed.


	5. interlude

_“_ But not like a person,” the words continued to echo in his head.

_“like a person”_

_“A person…” she said. That her films and books and games and projects don’t talk to her like a person so she comes here; as if she meant that there was a person_ here _. Talking with him and repeatedly seeking him out. That she believes so firmly that he's capable of wanting, when the concept of that does nothing but make him afraid._

 _It isn’t as if it was merely distasteful, socially unacceptable, or morally wrong. It’s so rare, and never went well—a deep danger to both parties_. _A woman ten years ago had an affair with a military security android. Fully functional human replica; it reportedly didn’t_ know _what it was. Whether or not it could love is unknown, and no one in the file seemed to care. It was destroyed in action, and salvaged later on. Designation/surname was Bueller. The girl’s name was Billie, last name on the file withheld. Whereabouts of either of them went unlisted. Samuels was afraid to ask._

_Then there was a case, a story told a thousand times in back corners of bars and break rooms alike about a San Francisco police officer that stole a prototype synthetic woman and vanished off the face of the earth. She was one of the models with a Nexus brain, false memories similar to the programming that the Bueller android had, and Wallace batteries, without a new core she would die, but her body was never found. Despite the hunt spanning all in-system colonies, the officer was never found either. Charges against him on the record included theft of property; the theft of the synthetic woman._

_Salvage from the_ Prometheus _mission included some signs that the ship’s synthetic had a growing obsession with the head scientist, one Dr. Elizabeth Shaw. There was no evidence that infatuation or affection was involved in it, but his data recording of the crew and their activities focused extensively on her._

_And of course, he wondered constantly about Ripley's friend, Zula Hendricks, who had gone AWOL in the company of a military security droid. His kind was a hive-mind not dissimilar to the Working Joe models that Sevastapol was run by. The most recent signals however, indicated that it might have hacked its own mind to break protocol._

_The fact that Samuels had been researching this subject, hunting for any kind of indication or even the possibility at all was a fact that nagged him. That he should think himself to be broken, or else so lucky, to be counted in these few rankings. That he should think himself even an iota of worth compared to the splendid girl that made his core processors burn and senses dull on every subject but for her, to better commit her to memory. There are over four hundred of him, and should anything ever happen to one, it would be replaced with a new one crafted on demand. Each one identical, featuring a randomized set of basic traits to help operators tell them apart. They have the same voice, the overall personality based on their intended use, the same eyes, every single hair on them matches the rest of the line...._

_.... Ripley had ninety-eight freckles of varying faintness over the bridge of her noes, over her cheeks and her neck from where he could see, and one on her right ear, right above a row of healed piercings. Her eyes were a mix of Amazonite, olive, and streaks of hazel, brilliant as cut mineral. Her hair was a thousand different pigments of light brown and dark red, not as uniform in shade as a synthetic’s._

_He memorized the tone of her voice, the touch of her hand when she shook his over her Company contract for this mission. He was analyzing the thoughts for longer than he normally ever thought about any interaction with his employers, with outsiders. Despite drawing out the meeting for as long as he could without bothering her, he wished he had invited her, as he would have invited a business venture, to a nice café on company expense; possibly dinner at that gorgeous glass pavilion on the edge of the atmosphere. He's never tried eating solid food before, but he'd deal with it if that was the cost of spending that kind of time with her. He still would if this was different, if she didn't feel so indebted to him, if they were still on Luna, if she didn't know that he was a--_

_It’s nothing though; he'll enjoy this closeness for the next couple of days, then a couple days at the most at the station, then a week on board—again, at the most—cryo, several days to get back to Luna and dock, and then he’ll likely never see her again. He’ll confess to the techs at the synthetics lab that he was sensing anomalies and his coding checked forward and backwards. Once he had the repair he won’t even remember feeling like this._

“Feeling…”


	6. To Give

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I posted "To Give" saying it was from a WIP. This is the WIP, and this is the chapter it ended up being in. Because there are some differences, I'll leave the original one up, but I wanted to inform readers in case they saw this and said "what gives, where's the new chapter???"

There's an unofficial rule off-planet that stated that contraband on a ship could be dealt with in three ways: out the trash chute, locked up in a storage container to be destroyed and reported on upon return to base, or shared among the crew. When Ripley joked about he hidden box in the tech locker to the captain, assuming that it was hers, she realized she had just ratted out Conner. Apparently he had several of these throughout the cabins, which Ripley thought went well with the sound of old music that was always coming from his office/cabin.

The captain decided however, that this stash in particular was to be dealt with as contraband, and shared.

Which would have been fine if Taylor had had ever smoked before; she hadn’t, and within two hours she was miserably sick.

“I’ll get her to her bunk, and find something for her nausea,” Conner told the others, Verlaine nodded.

“You guys, you’ve done this a lot. Haven't you?” Ripley, who was sicker from the smell of it than she was affected by it, replied with clarity. It dragged up memories of bad parties she crashed during her years at undergrad.

“Longer than you’ve probably been alive,” Verlaine said, moving aside so Conner could help Taylor back to her cabin.

“I’m twenty-six, you can’t be _that_ old.” Ripley said.

“Close to it unfortunately. My baby sister’s kids aren’t much younger than you are." She looks at Ripley carefully, analyzing.

Samuels watched her too. Ripley had been talking more and more freely the past hours than she had in front of any of the human crew before. She showed herself to be hard-headedly opinionated, sailor-mouthed, but genuinely good. Though from their conversations he would have said she was charming and sweet, her persona in front of the entire crew was more rakish and thick skinned. Now that the effects were wearing off her standoffishness was returning, and she was visibly uncomfortable.

“Well… I guess tell Conner I said thanks,” the little party was over, if it could be called that and Ripley was not one to out-stay her welcome. Leave before they have a chance to leave _you_. That was what kept her alive the past ten years, and God willing would for another fifty or so. She stood up and pushed her chair in; avoiding eye contact with the other party at the table, especially with her typical companion. He hadn't said three words to her the entire evening, and she was sure now that she had said  _something_ that had upset him. All she did was suggest that he could want things, that he was able to do that. Fine, maybe she was teasing him a little, but it was...playful. She wasn't trying to be rude.  _Great going Rip, now the robot won't even talk to you_.

“Good night, Ripley,” Verlaine had opened her mouth to say it, but it wasn’t her voice. Both she and Ripley looked with confused surprise at Samuels. He had been so quiet tonight; once in a while he would look up almost as if excited at certain points in the conversations, as if he wanted to give input, but then would retreat back, composing himself carefully.

“Good night,” Ripley said, though it sounded more like a question than a friendly well-wish. She went to leave in the general direction of the cabins. Every part of her wanted to stay, figure out what she'd done to upset him, but she'd been here too many times before. If she stayed she would be clinging, and that wouldn't be good for anyone. Better to let this frizzle out now than become a rough cut later on. What was one-less friend at this point? She had no one, and needed no one. There was no one to care for her, to miss her, to hold her back, to hold her close, no one to answer to, no one to mourn her. This kept everyone from getting hurt, she'd say. A voice in the back of her mind whispering sadly in the voice of an eleven year old hoarse from screaming that she will  _not_ come downstairs for her birthday cake until her mother makes her:  _you're just making sure that no one ever gets a chance to leave you again._

 She felt the sting in her eyes and blinked them hard; it was the beer, it was the pot, it was her exhaustion. She was stronger than this, and refused to be seen like this; she slumped against the wall just out of sight of the galley, away from the corridor that Taylor would walk down if she were to limp out for a glass of water.

* * *

 

At the table Samuels had become aware that Verlaine was studying him as he cleaned up everyone's dishes, scraps, empty bottles, and ashes. She was the owner yes, but he knew that as contracted employees of the company that he was her senior officer. Yet as a synthetic, the menial tasks fell on him. He was never asked to wait on anyone, but he did either out of compulsion or a sense of duty, he never asked himself why exactly. His purpose was to do things that he could either do better and faster than a human, or else something that a human did not want to do. 

When he turned to the cleaner-box, his eyes passed the the door that Ripley had left through, and though he didn't think he looked at it long enough to alert Verlaine, she spoke up.

“Well how about that,” Verlaine said, amused as she leaned back in her chair.

“What?” he asked, turning back the cleaner and loading it with dishes; he shut it, and pressed its ‘on’ switch. He was a  _business model_ , he was  _designed_ for this. 'Poker face.' Unreadable. 

Verlaine waited until she had his full attention again before sharing her observation of him:

“You’ve taken a liking to the girl.”

“I assure you, captain, Taylor is merely another company employee, I didn’t even meet her until assignment for—“

“Not her. Ripley. The odd one out on this whole trip.” Verlaine specified.

He knew that it would only serve as evidence to her theory but he needed to protest it.

“Ripley is not _odd._ ”  Contrary, he was one of the sanest people he’d ever had a long conversation with, and certainly one of the kinder ones. No one, not even the young floor manager at his office ever treated him as a fellow human to such an extent. No one ever asked him if he’d _seen_ films, to say nothing of asking which ones he enjoyed. Whether or not Ripley was only seeking a listening ear and a voice in the room, or if she was truly trying to befriend him, it was a treatment that he wasn’t used to. Maybe that made her odd to other humans, but it shouldn’t have. They were missing out.

“It’s true, isn’t it; you’re the one that insisted she come with us?”

“Yes, its t-true,” he paused. “But any person who came across her file would do the same." 

Verlaine stood up, walked past him to the water machine, punched in a number and steaming water poured into a fresh mug. From one of the containers on the bar, she took a tea bag and dropped it in. She didn’t offer him one; synths were never offered things. Samuels thought nothing of it; this wasn't an insult, and he didn't read it as prejudice. Most synths go their whole existence without eating or drinking. There was no reason for her to offer.  _There was no reason for Ripley to offer either and she still did_ , he thought and tried ignore it.

“ _’Person_.’ Not you. And yet, you still saw a need to have her here.” She said

“I would say that ‘need’ is a bit strong of a word to use in this situation.” He didn’t’ sit down when she did; he didn’t want to invite this conversation to last longer than necessary.

“Depends on what kinds of needs you have. If any,” she shook her head and laughed silently at herself. “Fuck, I don’t know if you have any idea what I’m talking about.”

It would have come as an uncomfortable shock to Verlaine that yes, he did know what she was talking about. Still he steered her thought process away from physical concepts. It wasn't even that he hadn't considered the idea; true he had no biological chemistry telling him that he wanted her physically, but the idea of an action considered pleasant, romantic, and close appealed him in the context of Ripley. But tried to avoid thinking about it. At all.

“I’m not capable of the kind of adoration which one needs to give in order to be considered ‘in love.’ If that was what you were getting to.”

“And you think that to love someone is to give?”

“Forgive me, I’m at a loss.” His voice had dropped to be flat, robotic. “My understanding of the emotional spectrum is limited to necessity for Turing-passing conversation. Nothing more.”

“You get monotone when you’re pissed off. Just more protocol to avoid argument, right?”

“ _Pardon?!”_

“There’s that Weyland-Yutani social and emotional authenticity. All I asked was what you think human love is. Touched a nerve, maybe. I don’t know, Jesus, what kind of crap does Conner smoke…”

Samuels took a seat across from her, feeling defeated but managing to look defiant. Glitchy, buggy, or broken, he found as much distaste in the idea that  _didn't_ seem to be a well-functioning Weyland-Yutani Synthetic as he found in the fact that he  _did_ seem like one.

“I would gather from what I have witnessed, what I’ve read and seen, that to love is to give whatever you can to someone. It is to offer whatever you have of yourself to the other person.”

“Even at the risk of your— _sorry,”_ she apologized sarcastically, “Even at the risk of _someone’s_ nice company job?”

“Even at the risk of death,” he said flatly and finally.

“Is death something you can understand?”

“My concept of it is hazy, as you’d expect. Yet again, I’d take from what I’ve seen and heard that yes, to love would a willingness to die for the other.”

The ship hummed to fill the break in conversation. There were too many natural satellites in this region to go through it in hyperspace—likely the reason that Sevastapol was built to begin with, and crossing it would take time. Slowly and silently, asteroids and micro-planets passed in the distance as they approached the massive orange gas giant that the station orbited.

“Would your programming allow you to die for a human?”

“There’s nothing in it that tells me I can’t, as long as there are no contradicting orders at the time.”

“But would you be willing to—“

“Gladly.” His programming didn't demand that he die to save the life of one of his superiors, of a human. He could choose to preserve his own functionality; after all, he was easily the most useful if not the most valuable member of any crew he had ever been on. In most scenarios he's played through his computers, he was the only one who was truely replaceable. His offer of sacrifice may not extend to every single human he's ever met, but certainly a large number of them.

“My unwarranted advice would be don’t let yourself getting killed for someone be the signal that you had a torch for them. Tell them ahead of time,” she said.

There was an echo of humor in his reply “I thought this was more philosophical than practical.”

“Take it or don’t, but don’t let yourself end up in a recycling plant while Ripley gets a white picket fence and a nobody husband, in a cozy small town back home.”

“She would never settle for complacency. But again, what you’re insinuating isn’t something…”

“Isn’t what?”

Once again he pauses. It does not take him long to think through what he’s going to say; his mind is faster than a human’s by a good deal, but he does not want to say it. He could talk Verlaine in circles, out logic her, or keep her trapped in fallacy after fallacy—but she’s inebriated. She’s not likely to remember this, less likely to repeat it, and there’s a strange weight in his central processor that’s telling him he’s not coming home from this trip—as routine as it was. The internal cooling system’s fans slowed down, and let out air, and it sounded like he sighed:

“It isn’t possible for it to be reciprocated.”

Verlaine offers a sympathetic smile that he doesn't even notice. Telling Ripley wasn't an option. It would be rude at the very least, possibly offend her, almost certainly it would chase her off. Worst of all was his worry that she would somehow fear him.

“Well,” Verlaine said, finally breaking the long silence and sounding slightly kinder than she did at the start of this exchange. “I’m turning in. Good night.”

“Good night,” he said, nodding at her as she left.

           

 _You’ve really done it this time_. He knew he had been damaged for a while. Sentience or not, whatever was wrong with him was what made him as useless as Taylor, fresh out of law school, and Amanda, a thorn in Weyland-Yutani’s side. Or Verlaine, with little family and none she lived with, or Conner, who's Marine Officer partner was stationed in another sector entirely.

They were expendable, every one of them. The fact that they didn’t use a company ship gave him even more cause for concern. _How dangerous is this? It’s a routine mission. I’ve done this a dozen times..._ Verlaine's words suggesting he tell Amanda at some point, the pity on her face when he told her the truth. If they were in for any serious threats, perhaps telling Ripley would be worth it...perhaps...

His mind ran as many scenarios as he could before he noticed a pattern. _Even if you were human, she wouldn’t want you_. While he didn’t know the exact age of his model’s base, he was significantly older than his— _she’s not in anyway mine, I cannot own things, and no one can own her_ —engineer. Certainly a woman of such pleasant appearances would find a human around her own age and level of beauty. Someone with shared interests, similar stories.

What Verlaine said about Ripley's future wasn’t so awful; it wasn’t the hands-on fixing of her grandparents’ house, but a nice and safe home in a quiet town with someone who loved her was far from a bad future. Perhaps someday her and her partner could afford to find, purchase, and repair the old house, perhaps someday she might need to sign severance papers when she quits the company and he could request to be the one to— _would you stop that? They never should have assigned you to this. Get the job done and go get your hard drive reinstalled._

Romantic reveries weren't his forte. Sometimes he indulged in less-than-likely meanings behind the slight flush she would get if he made an unexpected remark in conversation, or a type of smile she'd give him. Those distant swirling, deep-dream images that refused to erase entirely from his mind, of Ripley in his cabin, of Ripley in even less than her cryosleep clothing, of--

He preferred to remember once again the weight of her hand in his when she signed her papers; she shook his over a mountain of hardcopy and digital forms on datapads. Her grip was sure, and far from shy, fingers shorter than his but strong, calloused in the places they would have met friction against the inside of ill-fitting work gloves. Textured fingerprints that were wholly unique, lacking the miniature logo that was in the center of each of his. Slightly warm from the anxiousness of finally getting answers to her mother's disappearance. Very real, a genuine, friendly touch. It was a touch that perhaps he could find an excuse to repeat.

The lights timed off, not that it made a difference; it took true vacuum darkness to blind him. Outside the stars looked distant; their home sun was one of them, and Earth impossibly far, invisible, and yet that’s where they had began. _You know it’s impossible, truly impossible, you have nothing to give her, you don’t even have a life, and the company owns the body your computer is housed in._

“Nothing…” he replied to himself out loud, thoroughly certain that _something_ in him was absolutely failing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll get a happier ficlet soon, before the turn around chapters of this and the Everything Goes To Hell part.


	7. Tragic Flaw

“ _Samuels!”_

Amanda sat up in her bunk so quickly that she hit her head on the empty bunk above her. _What…the fuck…?_ Her heart was racing, her mind reeling to reach back to whatever she was dreaming of that made her call out for help

… _that wasn’t a call for help,_ fuck _that was_ …

She adjusted to where she was; this was a crew bunk in the crew cabin, not a blanket-less cot in an officer’s cabin. She was alone her thin mattress, not pinned under the weight of another person; her clothes clinging to a slight sweat, not in a haphazard pile on the floor.

“ _Wha_..?” Taylor sat up across the room, and turned on the overhead light above her bunk.

“What?”

“You said something, and then I heard a ‘thud,’” she sounded concerned, polite as she could be considering that she had just been woken up in the early hours.

“Nothing…bad dream, and I hit my head…”

“Alright,” she turned off her lamp, and laid back down, “I’m going back to sleep.”

“Yeah…I’ll be quiet, but I think I’m going to go and…shower…” Amanda sat up, suddenly hyper aware of the feeling of her clothes, of the distinct lack of touch, of the silence instead of that voice mumbling closely at her ear _“Stay…stay…stay…_ ”

The hapless idiot; she’ll have to face him in the morning, that innocent hapless idiot that just says he wants to help her, but took her desperate cry for attention as…as what? An invitation? He’s never tried or said anything that could be seen as forward. Clearly he was capable of liking things, and taking interests, but he didn’t believe it, and he was so damn innocent that she almost bought it. Maybe he was more machine than human; maybe she just met some really rude synths when she was at the offices. Polite by design, kind by choice, and helpful by nature: the description could be used as an advertisement for PA droids. And the past day and a half he’s been nearly silent to her.

Still.

 _It’s only because it’s been a long time_ , she tried to rationalize. Several months since her last attempt at a hook up, and even longer since the last time she’d actually gone to bed with someone.

 _It’s only because we were talking late, and my brain and body just decided ‘fuck it’_ , _literally_ , she tried. This wasn’t the first weird sex dream she’d had. Though the others were with someone she was dating, a long-dead rock singer miraculously in his mid-twenties again, and a girl she had been eyeing at work for weeks. Never casual acquaintances. Never friends.

 _It’s only because he had a really nice smile when he’s smiling unconsciously, a natural one._ Somehow it made him look both younger and older at once. It was charming. It was—

 _Goddamnit_.

Shower. A cold one. That was in order right now, and then work. Even if it’s early.

But if she had to choose between nightmares about what she might discover about her mother tomorrow, or dreams of unwarranted scenarios about part of the ship’s damn _machinery_ she would still have to choose the latter.

Amanda crept down to the locker room, stripped out of her pyjamas, and pulled a towel around herself, quietly walking down the dark and creaky corridor to the showers; narrow stalls with a steady jet from above that makes an annoying, constant water-on-metal racket of noise that was, in the moment, therapeutic.

She turned the dial as cold as it would go, and screamed in shock; shaking, she turned it to lukewarm, then warmer, leaning against the wall behind the stream.

“ _fuck_.”

Less than twenty four hours until they’d be in view of Sevastapol. Less than two days before boarding, and less than a week before she’d be back in cryo, with full knowledge of what happened fifteen years ago to her mother.

Of the two outcomes that were the most plausible, that she was dead, or that she had willingly abandoned her, Amanda had thought that finding out that she was dead would be easier. As a child she had cooked up endless scenarios in which space pirates had kidnapped the crew of the Nostromo; her mother’s coworkers, the woman that Ripley didn’t like, the man her mother often had over for dinner. Dallas, who didn’t understand why watching her dad’s old copies of _Star Trek_ episodes and trying to bond with her over them wasn’t allowed. In retrospect he tried. In retrospect Amanda realized that he was her mother’s boyfriend, and if things turned out differently, he might have been a father figure to her, if not take her own father’s place in her heart entirely. Young Amanda played through every possible outcome of the pirate scenario, that they were being forced to work on a pirate crew, sold as labor to a distant colony planet, caught with the pirates by authorities and in jail on one of said planets.

Her dad stopped sending her cards when she was ten. Her grandfather vanished with his ship’s crew not long after that. At least with the latter, she and her grandmother knew was dead. She never told her grandmother, but she liked to think that maybe her father had somehow died in a tragic accident too; it helped her make sense of the grief that she felt in place of the anger that she thought she should have towards him. As a teenager, Amanda began to think that the idea that of her mother getting kidnapped by pirates sounded too far-fetched. She either abandoned her, or she died.

It was easier for her to think the latter. The lack of knowing, the vague possibility that she was alive held off the worst of the mourning and allowed her to stay angry at her instead _I’m glad she’s gone, if she wants to leave me to, fine._ Though some days she would have preferred to know for certain, other days, bad days, it was a nice thought that perhaps somewhere Ellen Ripley was buying a one-way ticket to where her daughter was last seen, and that she might have some maternal words of comfort for her. Unlikely.

Here and now, she _knew_ that she had to be dead. Any other possibility was so slim; that the _Nostromo_ could have ended up so mutilated as to have it’s flight recorder expelled _and_ the crew, or even just her mother live was so close to impossible that it finally started to sink into her, like the ice water did minutes earlier, tiny cold spikes embedding themselves in her skin, inching closer to her core, threatening to leech out every last bit of warmth left in her.

When she didn’t know, she liked to pretend that she knew her mother was dead. Now that she knew, she was using every last drop of childish hope to imagine a scenario in which the elder Ripley might have survived. 

Maybe.

Maybe that was why she was so desperate for company on this trip; why she got so attached to quickly to the person to show her kindness. Maybe her dreaming-mind was onto something with its scene of her new friend on top of her in his bunk, and a distraction— a mindless, physical distraction— was what was called for. Maybe some self-care was called for. Maybe…

She’s twenty-five, and never liked getting close to others for very long, so doing it herself was…simpler, more reliable, and wouldn’t leave her with a touch of regret in the morning when she either woke up alone, or had to throw the person out of her flat so she could go to work. The only part that bothered her now was that she kept imagining that voice in her head, the actions of the dream, while she had her free hand white-knuckled around the water dial.

She bit down hard on her tongue, tasting a tang of blood, and of guilt. It was…inappropriate; he was sweet and maybe some of what he was doing could be misconstrued as flirtatious but… _No_. _Not the time. Not the place. Not the person_

The automated computer voice of the water system interrupted her internal debate.

“SHOWER #3 TIME…45 SECONDS REMAINING…”

“Fine, fuck you too.” She waited under the warm until the water stopped itself, reaching past the inner door for her towel before pulling open the sliding door that led out to the locker room corridor, her feet heavier than they were on her way in.

“What are you doing awake? You’re not on this shift.”

 _Are you shitting me?_ Samuels stood outside the shower stall door, looking awkward with a towel over one shoulder, and undressed down to joggers and a long-sleeved t-shirt.

If Ripley had been drinking, or smoking more than she had been, or even _slightly_ more tired she would have figured this was still part of the dream. And then, figuring it was still part of her dream, she would have pulled the shirt over his head and dragged him back into the shower with her.

“I—I woke up from—Uh…How long have you been standing there?”

“Not very,”

“I—I’m sorry—“

“You didn’t make me wait too long. I have nothing else to do, nothing urgent only that I was overheating and thought cold water would—“

“Oh my god, then please, get in and—“ he couldn’t get in with her still standing in the narrow stall, and she awkwardly inched out, pressing herself to the wall not to touch him _at all_ because despite it being dark she watched the muscles in his arm flex slightly as he moved, the fitted shirt showing off just enough to make her wonder what he uniform shirts and jacket covered and _why the hell would Weyland-Yutani give arms like that to an exec droid?_ She had to be seeing things. Trick of the light and shadows.

“Don’t worry, it isn’t serious it was only a few thoughts I’ve been dealing with; they’ve stressed my protocols and I could feel an overheat—“ he paused, looking at Amanda’s paled and almost frightened face. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“ _Peachy_. Thanks. I’m tired. I-I’m going back to bed.”

“Good night then, Ripley.”

“’Night.”

Amanda didn’t even make it to the locker rooms, listening behind her for the snap of the shower stall shutting. _Go on, knock and ask if he wants company_ , a voice in her head urged. More sense told her different, _don’t do that to him, what if he can’t say no? he probably doesn’t even have the parts_. Then again, the parts weren’t really priority to her. _No, no no. Bed. Back to bed Ripley_ …

She walked back to the shower stalls, knocked on the door to the one with running water, and waited for a reply.

“Ripley? Is that still you?”

“Yeah—I had a question,” she leaned against the door carefully, not to let him hear the thud of her hitting it, not to let him hear how worn out she was.

“Is it one that could wait? Not that I mind, I’m only afraid that I’m not much use behind a closed door.”

“It’s just a one word answer.”

“I think I can handle that,”

Amanda held back for a moment, shaking from the chill of the recycled air breezing down the corridor and creeping around her wet skin and hair.

“Do you think my mom’s dead?”

He didn’t answer for a while, and Ripley was starting to think that he wouldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” she stood up straight, and stopped leaning on the door. “I shouldn’t have asked, it’s only that I’ve been thinking about the next couple days and then I had this… _fucking_ bizarre dream—“

“Ripley—“

“And I used to think I moved on and that I was over it, but now it’s…official, she won’t ever send me a card or call me or—“

“Ripley—“

“It’s fine. I don’t need an answer from you, only with the whole logic-calculator thing—“

“ _Amanda_.”

Her brain caught up with her racing heart and running mouth and tried to slow each of them long enough to process that she had been referred to by her first name, something she rarely ever heard. “Yes?”

“The odds aren’t _zero_ that she’s alive, but they’re not good. I don’t want to see your hopes get raised just so they can be knocked back down tomorrow.”

“Thanks…I really should go to bed.” She heard the water shut off.

“If you don’t mind waiting a moment I can walk you back.”

“How noble of you,” some of her attitude began to return, if only in words and not in tone, “But I think I can handle the fifty seconds of marching on my own.”

“Or I could bring you tea.”

“Caffeine’ll just keep me up even later…”

“Stay in my cabin,” before Amanda had time to fully process what he had offered in context, he finished quickly with: “I’m starting my duties immediately from here, you’ll have it to yourself; the engine’s roar doesn’t penetrate the cabins as much as it does the crew’s quarters. Maybe you could sleep sounder.”

“Samuels.”

“Yes?”

“What are you going to offer me next?”

“I’m afraid that’s all that I can offer you; spare the uniforms and the materials in my desk, but I can’t give them to you seeing as the company owns…well, all of it. And myself. But feel free to use whatever you’d like. Please.” She could feel the vibration of his voice through the outer door now. “I’m the one that brought you here, and I didn’t do it to upset you or your life. So if there’s anything that I can do to make things easier for you—“

“You’ve done enough,” afraid that she had sounded to curt with her answer, she added: “Thank you. You’re a lot nicer than the designers probably hoped you’d be.”

“A mistake,”

“The most tragic of flaws,” Ripley said, finally able to summon audible sarcasm; hearing it in her voice must have encouraged him slightly, as he started on one of his tangents.

“In literature a ‘tragic flaw’ is what brings about the downfall of a great hero or leader. Usually it’s _hubris_ on the part of the protagonist.”

“Then your tragic flaw is that you’re _too damn nice_.”

“There’s worse things,” he said, considering.

“Much worse,” Amanda agreed. “Good night, for good this time.”

“Good night.” 

* * *

 

Ripley considered for several minutes about accepting his offer to use his cabin, but she couldn’t do it. She didn’t trust herself not to be waiting for him to come back, not to ask him to rest a moment with her, even if sitting up on his narrow bed, the quilt off her bunk around their shoulders, enjoying a last moment of peace before the formalities of the station.

In her own space in the crew’s shared quarters she pulled the blanket over her head and tried to get one more hour of sleep.


	8. Middle of the Tempest

English literature and culture, eleventh grade.

Amanda Ripley sat in the back row. She’d already read the text, paid off a friend to hack the teacher’s documents for access to homework assignments, and she completed all the ones associated with it for the next week and a half. On her datapad, held up on an angle so the teacher couldn’t see it, she was already halfway through the next book.

It was all too dramatic for her, all of it so dated and so Romantic, it had no place in the modern world. Reading was alright, but she never could get attached to dramas or the comedies, the star-crossed lovers, or the ghosts. Some of the gruesome histories appealed to her for their stark cynicism of human nature; almost a thousand years after being written they still called out the warnings that humans were not only cruel more than kind, but that they were changeable with even the slightest nudge to one side or the other.

What dragged the vivid image to her mind, the thermos of coffee in her backpack begging for attention, the rain coming down outside the window, the teacher rambling about metamorphosis and alchemy—was a quote. A line that in context was more of a joke—from a clown’s mouth if her memory of the play served as well as the memory of scene and the feel of her high school datapad’s racing sticker-plastered case did.

It played softly in her head as she listened to the thud of her own heart, struggling to hold onto the inside of the locker’s door with her sweating hands and injured wrist. It played with the backing rhythm of a great creature—of two of them, at least—walking through; it’s tail sounding like a massive snake racing across the metal floor panels.

It played in the gaps between her shallow breaths.

 

 _Hell is empty and all the devils are here_.


End file.
